Madam Speaker, yes, of course, I know my dear colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford could not see Mount Maxwell lately because we were in so much smoke. It has been a very depressing time between knowing we can only visit our friends outdoors and at a distance, but we cannot because we have to go indoors because of the smoke, and our friends cannot come in with us because they are not in our bubble. It is a distressing time.
The institutionalized poverty and accepting it as normal is not something Canada should ever do. I do not know how many people experienced this walking along in Europe, but I did not see anybody homeless on the street there with a hat upside-down hoping they could panhandle their way to their next meal. That is not something we see. I talk about Jim with my friend from New Westminster—Burnaby. I have not seen Jim lately, but I have not been walking on the street. Jim is a friend, a veteran, who needs to panhandle for his medication just outside of the Château Laurier.
There is no excuse for a country like Canada to tolerate poverty. Martin Luther King said many years ago that there was only one solution he had ever found to eliminate poverty and it is a guaranteed income.